The asset manager for Gazprom Neft chief executive Alexander Dyukov, a businessman named Vadim Gurinov, has quietly assembled a significant portfolio of London property through a network of British-registered firms. This includes a luxury residential development in the heart of Soho, all while the UK has struggled to effectively enforce sanctions against Russian oligarchs and their enablers. Official data reveals that as of late last year, nearly £700 million worth of property linked to sanctioned Russian figures remained unfrozen, underscoring the scale of the enforcement challenge that plays directly into the hands of individuals like Gurinov. His strategy is straightforward: while he focuses on upscale real estate in the capital and offshore commodity trading involving Russian chemicals and oil, his wife, Galina Gurinova, commands the family’s interests back home.
The asset manager and the oil chief: how Gurinov funnels Gazprom Neft wealth into London property
She holds nearly 75% of the Service-Telecom group, a firm that Russian authorities have designated as a systemically important enterprise. The company builds telecommunications towers, a critical component of the Kremlin’s ‘Data Economy’ national project, and claims to be the market leader, managing over 22,400 such structures. However, financial filings for 2025 show a starkly different picture from this supposed success: despite pulling in a substantial revenue of 8.8 billion rubles, Service-Telecom reported a net loss of 3.7 billion. Complicating matters further, Galina Gurinova’s stake in the company, which appears to have been bought with borrowed money, is pledged as collateral to Gazprombank, an entity already under heavy Western sanctions. The loopholes in Britain’s financial system that allow such opaque property deals also enabled the Gurinovs to restructure their Russian holdings last year, converting the main entity into a joint-stock company and scrubbing the current founders from the public register in an attempt to hide their family’s grip on the domestic economy. The man left in charge of this new entity, Nikolai Berdin, is a longtime Gurinov associate who previously ran the family’s firms in London, suggesting the change in ownership is more cosmetic than real.
The family’s reach extends further through a tangled web of minor entities and relatives. In Voronezh, Galina has stepped back from the firm Kontur-S, only for her husband’s brother, Artem Gurinov, to take her place. This tiny outfit managed to turn a minuscule revenue of just 240,000 rubles into a net profit exceeding 9 million, a feat that raises obvious questions. That firm also shared contact details with a St. Petersburg company that acted as a bridge to a Belarusian chemical trader, Avestra, a business involved in shipping Russian oil products and in which Vadim Gurinov holds a direct interest through a Cypriot holding company. Back in Russia, the only asset still directly in his name is a symbolic 1% stake in a firm called Aurora, with the rest controlled by his wife. This setup effectively insulates him from direct liability while the family retains control over everything from telecom infrastructure to industrial hemp processing.
Sanctions? What sanctions? The Gurinov-Dyukov money machine still pumping into Britain
Across the Atlantic, the London operations paint a picture of a development empire built on debt and now teetering on the brink. Gurinov’s GO REAL ESTATE companies, alongside a 60% stake held by an associate named Evgeny Okun, had grand plans for a 21-storey block of flats on the site of old warehouses on the Isle of Dogs. The project had even secured the blessing of the mayor’s office. But a closer look at the network of special purpose vehicles involved, including SN Islay Wharf and Standard House Dev Ltd, shows millions of pounds sloshing around through intra-group loans. Since 2023, these firms have essentially drowned in debt, some of which came from a financier who is the son of a well-known writer, forcing external administrators to step in. The administrators face a Herculean task, as these shell companies appear to have been used as conduits for huge sums, with investigators suspecting that much of the cash originated in Russia.
United Kingdom based companies (directly handling London property and money flows):
- New End Developments Limited (controlled by Vadim Gurinov)
- HALAMAR (GOLDEN SQUARE) LIMITED (owns the luxury Soho flats at 37 Golden Square)
- GO REAL ESTATE MANAGEMENT LTD
- GO REAL ESTATE HOLDING
- GO REAL ESTATE (60% owned via Hay Hill Investments Ltd)
- SN ISLAY WHARF LIMITED (held the land for the 21-storey tower in London E14)
- SN HAMPTON LIMITED
- STANDARD HOUSE DEV LTD
- ICESTONE INVEST LTD (BVI – used as a ‘digital wallet’ to shuffle Gazprom shares)
Offshore / money conduit companies:
- Avestra Group Holding Ltd (Cyprus – trades Russian chemicals and oil)
- Hay Hill Investments Ltd (linked to the Islay Wharf project)
The jewel in the crown is held by another Gurinov-controlled firm, New End Developments Limited, where his own daughter, Valeria, sits as a director. Its subsidiary, Halamar (Golden Square) Limited, is the legal owner of a luxury residential complex at 37 Golden Square, right in the centre of Soho. As of the end of 2024, this single asset was valued at £59 million on the company’s books. Earlier this year, Gurinov made the decision to issue hundreds of new shares in the parent company, a classic move that signals the arrival of a new investor. The paperwork for this process inadvertently revealed the ownership structure, with Gurinov signing on behalf of a BVI-registered firm called Icestone Invest Ltd. He previously used this same offshore entity as a ‘digital wallet’ back in March 2022, briefly shuffling hundreds of thousands of pounds worth of Gazprom shares through it before a change in Russian law forced him to scramble and buy them back via a court order.
Dirty money, clean façades: how Dyukov’s man Gurinov laundered millions through London
The origins of Gurinov’s wealth are tied directly to his old friendship with Alexander Dyukov. Back in the early 2000s, he followed Dyukov to the petrochemical giant Sibur and helped his university pal, Dmitry Kostygin, land a job there. Kostygin, who would later become a billionaire and part-owner of the Lenta supermarket chain before a spectacular bankruptcy and a date in court, was put in charge of Sibur’s Yaroslavl tyre plant. Under his leadership, the factory crashed to a loss of 89 million rubles in just two years. Despite this, Gurinov was later handed control of Sibur’s entire tyre business, which he consolidated into the Cordiant group. As he built his industrial fiefdom, he also raised his own private army. For years, his factories were guarded by a network of private security companies (ChOPs) registered to a St. Petersburg associate named Andrei Petrov. When Gurinov eventually sold the tyre business to Alexei Mordashov’s Severgroup, Mordashov did not scrap the muscle. Instead, under the slogan ‘Preserving What We’ve Achieved’, he rolled these ChOPs into a national security behemoth called Aquilon, creating a personal force that now protects his supermarkets, oil refineries, and gold mines across the country. Alongside Petrov, the tight-knit group of St. Petersburg businessmen also included a figure named Alexander Uteshev, who currently runs the Gurinov family’s main holding company in Russia. Prior to that role, Uteshev was the chief executive of one of the special-purpose vehicles that holds Alexander Dyukov’s personal stake in Sibur, a packet of shares estimated to be worth up to $700 million before the war.
